I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

Data and assumptions about student waste

• Commenters question the article’s use of “donation pounds per student” as a proxy for waste, noting it ignores untracked channels (church/synagogue rummage sales, informal student-to-student hand‑offs).
• Comparisons between elite schools (Duke, Princeton, Georgetown) and others (UChicago, Northwestern, big publics) are seen as oversimplified; local culture, fashion preferences, and off‑campus donation patterns differ.

Move‑out culture and “trash holidays”

• Many note the phenomenon is old and widespread: “Allston Christmas” (Boston), “Hippie Christmas” (Madison), “Penn Christmas” (UPenn), similar events at Berkeley, UW, SMU, Duke, etc.
• Townspeople and students have long treated move‑out week as a scavenging season for furniture, electronics, textbooks, and even high‑end gear.

Why valuable items get trashed

• Main drivers cited: tight move‑out deadlines, exams/finals stress, lack of cars, airline baggage limits, high shipping costs, and little time or desire to deal with Craigslist/FB Marketplace no‑shows.
• For many, the expected resale value (especially of used clothing, linens, small appliances) doesn’t justify the hassle; some explicitly frame trashing as a rational time–money trade‑off.
• International students and very wealthy families are seen as especially likely to jettison bulky or export‑controlled items (electronics, furniture).

Dumpster divers, arbitrage, and secondary markets

• Numerous stories of people funding months of rent or beer money by collecting fridges, textbooks, electronics, high‑end chairs, and reselling them or refurbishing them.
• Some describe semi‑professional operations: seasonal storage-and-resale businesses, consignment shops, curb-shopping “cottage industries,” and people parting out or repairing gear.

Environmentalism, stigma, and emotional reactions

• Many express discomfort at the sheer waste and see it as evidence of a broader unsustainable, throwaway culture; some explicitly invoke “degrowth” or “reduce/reuse” over “recycle.”
• Others argue the real constraint is logistics and cognitive load, not hypocrisy about environmentalism.
• Feelings about dumpster diving range from pride and gratitude to disgust or social stigma; several argue that taking from trash is morally straightforward when the alternative is landfill.

Broader culture: wealth, luxury, and disposability

• Threads touch on rising inequality, wealthy domestic and international students, and casual treatment of expensive items (luxury shoes, AirPods, cars).
• Some question the article’s $6k valuation, noting massive depreciation and the dubious real value of “luxury” brands built on artificial scarcity.